When you create a key in AWS you can download it one time in PEM format. To use it in PuTTY, the free SSH and Telnet client, you have to convert it to PPK format.
To install PuTTY, see the Terminal Emulator section in Recommended utilities for your workstation
To convert a PEM file to PPK
- Open a terminal window in the folder of the PEM file
- Execute the following
puttygen MYKEY.pem -o MYKEY.ppk